Star Wars: Rogue One Review - 8 Ups & 2 Downs
This is how you do a Star Wars prequel.
Rating: ★★★★☆
The Force Awakens brought Star Wars roaring back to life.
Fast forward almost a year to the day of that movie's release, and it's time for another instalment in the Star Wars franchise, albeit a markedly different one.
On the face of it, Rogue One doesn't have the pressures that accompanied J.J. Abrams' Episode VII; there's less hype and expectancy, no atoning for the prequels. Star Wars is already back, so Rogue One has more freedom.
And yet, while that helps, it still has its own unique task to accomplish. Standing outside the Skywalker saga, and the first of a number of planned anthologies, it must prove that Star Wars can stand alone. That when you strip away the Jedi and Sith (for the most part), the lightsabers and Luke, the Force and the Falcon, it's still worthy of being a Star Wars movie.
That Rogue One does that is a hell of an achievement. It's not a perfect movie, but it's one that shows Disney and Lucasfilm know exactly what they're doing here. It may be Opening Crawl: The Movie, but it's so much more besides. Here's a spoiler-free look at what Rogue One got right, and what didn't quite land.